Component Description
The Housing Characteristics section (variable name prefixes HOQ or HOD) provides family level interview data on type of home, number of apartments in building, age of home, number of rooms in home, time lived in home, whether home is owned or rented, water source and treatment, and home renovations related to lead dust.
Eligible Sample
One study participant in each family responds for the entire family and these responses are released for all members of the same family. All questions in this section are asked of all families with the exception of those on home renovations related to lead dust, which were only asked of families with a participating child aged 1 to 5 years.
Interview Setting and Mode of Administration
Home Interview; In-person.
Data Processing and Editing
Multiple families in the same household may be selected as participants in the study. Sometimes, the data collected from different families living in the same household are discrepant. In most cases, these discrepancies are left as reported. For HOD040, When home was built, if one family did not know the age of the home, the value reported by another family in the same home was substituted for the “don’t know” response.
HOD011 Type of home: Responses to “other specify” were back coded into response categories whenever possible. The remaining “other specify” responses are released as “something else” (HOD011=5).
HOD030 How many apartments in building: Responses of 1 and 2 apartments per building were collapsed into one category due to low cell counts. A part of “other specify” responses for HOD011 were back coded into the apartment category (HOD011=4). These respondents were not asked this question and have missing values for this variable.
HOD050 Number of rooms in home: Any responses for this question equal or greater than 13 were top coded and released as 13.
HOD060 How many years family lived in home: These data were collected as continuous values but were collapsed into categories for release.
HOQ080 Water treatment devices used or not: Details on which of the water treatment devices were used were collected but not released due to unique combinations of devices which could identify family members. The text of the hand card with the list of devices in included in appendix A.
HOD140, HOD150, HOD160, HOD170, HOD180, HOD190, HOD210, HOD220 Home renovations: These questions were only asked of families with participating children ages 1-5 and data are released only on these children, not the entire family. These questions relate to the lead dust component and can also be linked to blood lead laboratory values (see Lab 06 Nutritional Biochemistries).
HOD180 Number of rooms 22x26 peeling: These data were collected as continuous values but were collapsed into the categories of 1 and 2 or more due to low cell counts.
HOD220 Window, cabinet or wall renovation: These data were collected in 3 separate questions which were combined due to low frequencies. The current variable indicates “yes” if any of the three types of renovation occurred.
Analytic Notes
Although these data were collected as part of the household questionnaire, if they are merged with the MEC exam data, exam sample weights should be used for the analyses.
Please refer to the Analytic Guidelines for further details on the use of sample weights and other analytic issues at https://wwwn.cdc.gov/nchs/nhanes/analyticguidelines.aspx.